Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/47

 The Battle of Boonsboro Gap. 35

Neither General Stuart nor General Lee mentioned any such fact in their official reports, and I am constrained to think that for once Colonel Allan was wrongly informed. After General Stuart's cavalry had passed down the mountain, Colonel Col- quitt moved his brigade to the east side of the mountain and formed a line of battle about half day down and across the Frederick and Hagerstown pike. jLjLc3/<io # .1

By this time it v/as growing dark, and as the enemy did not make any attack, the brigade was ordered to move for the night back to the top of the mountain, and pickets were sent out in advance, and also on the two narrow mountain roads leading from the Mountain House at the pass ; one to the right and south at Fox's Gap, and the other to the left and north to a narrow pass over the South Mountain. General Hill in his report says that he ordered the brigades of Colquitt and Gar- land to hold the pass on the afternoon of the 13th. If General Garland was ordered to the pass on the afternoon of the 13th, I am very sure he did not reach the top of the mountain until sunrise the next morning. I had never met General Garland and was anxious to see him, because I had heard that he wais engaged to be married to a very dear friend of mine, and I can hardly be mistaken in my very distinct recollection, that the first and only time I ever saw him in life, was when he rode up about sunrise on the morning of the battle, to the front of the Mountain House where we were eating a hurried break- fast, and Col. Colquitt asked him to get down and take a cup of cofifee, which he did while his brigade was filing by. Hardly two hours afterwards, at the request of General Hill, I was bearing an order to him, and met some of his men carrying his body from the field.

In the next place Colonel McCrae, who took command of General Garland's brigade after his fall, says in his official re- port, that "the brigade reached the Mountain House at the top of the mountain about sunrise on the morning of the 14th." In the last place, if General Garland had been present at the pass during the night of the 13th, he would have been the ranking